Edward Hicks, Primitive Quaker: His Religion in Relation to His Art

Pendle Hill Pamphlets

by Eleanore Price Mather

Edward Hicks is now recognized as America’s foremost primitive painter, and his Peaceable Kingdoms and other works are sought after by museums from coast to coast. Yet when he died in 1849 the local obituaries made no mention of his art, preferring to identify him as “an eminent member and minister of the Society of Friends.” This former emphasis is a significant one. For it would be hard to overstate the profound relationship between his religion and his art. In the entire history of painting we can scarcely find an artist, from Fra Angelico down, whose work was more intimately involved with his religious traditions and convictions.

Though the present pamphlet points out the cultural and social evidences of Quakerism in the painting of Edward Hicks, its special emphasis is on the inward aspect of his religion, particularly as revealed in his extraordinary series of Peaceable Kingdoms.

42 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

1910-1985

From the various archives container her papers:

Eleanore Price Mather (1910-1985) was a Quaker writer and editor from Rose Valley, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of Walter Ferris and Felicia Thomas Price. She married Robert Worrell Mather and was a member of Providence Monthly Meeting.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this short pamphlet, Mather gives us both a bio on Hicks and analysis of his Peaceable Kingdom paintings in context to his own faith as a Quaker and the strike of the Separation between “Orthodox” Quakers and “Hicksites” named after his cousin who gave greater emphasis to the personal mystical connection to the Inner Light to the scriptures. It is an interesting and enlightening tour of well known, but little understood paintings. It gave me a much greater appreciation of Hicks’ works.

This pamphlet is one of the few up to this point in the record of the Pendle Hill series to include photos of several of Hicks' works as well as a portrait of Edward by a cousin.